hankyoreh

Park Min-hee, Beijing Correspondent　　

Hankyoreh:The core concept of your book is ‘Throw up (abandon) the Western world order and prepare for the new Chinese world order.’ But now it seems that nobody likes the ‘New Chinese’ world order. What do you think is the main reason? Did China abandon the ‘bide time, hide power’ diplomacy too early?

“Yeah, I don’t think actually that Chinese foreign policy has changed very much. I think what’s changed is the context. That, before the financial crisis, people were very disillusioned in Bush, disillusioned in the United States.

They, uh, China had played in many ways a very positive role in East Asia. It was China that really, probably more than any other country, through its arrangements with ASEAN, and then ASEAN+1,2,3, helped to kind of bind Asia together. And it was its approach was in many ways I think quite humble in a sense that, you know, Northeast Asia has always looked down on Southeast Asia, always felt to be superior to it, and China, for the first time, you know, involving itself in a multilateral arrangement in the region, did it through the Southeast Asian countries. So this was a very, I think, very impressive, and I think it won China lots of respect and kudos in the region. Then there was a big change. You know, along came the financial crisis, no one was quite sure initially what the consequences would be. And in fact, the consequences had been to very significantly shift global power away from the United States and towards China.

Meanwhile, of course, Obama was elected as President of the United States. And um, so I think then China, then people in the region started looking at China in a different way. Because before, there was a sort of novelty about China. Now they have to think about, well, do they feel really comfortable with China? So it was the way people saw it, I think, more than what China did. And that‘s understandable because, you know, I don’t think there‘s been a great reversal.

I don’t think one moment China is relatively well regarded in the region and the next moment no one likes China anymore. I think it‘s, it’s people, we‘re getting used to a very new world, new order. And we’re getting used to thinking of China in a different way. And we‘re getting used to, uh, and China is getting used to this as well.

Chinese leadership are going to have, because this is all new for the Chinese leadership as well. They didn’t expect it. So um, so I wouldn‘t, I know there’s, I mean I was on Fareed Zakaria‘s CNN program on last Thursday, last Sunday. And he said, oh, and I like Fareed Zakaria, but he said, you know the atmosphere is changing, and I said, well no, we’re just getting a bit, um, carried away. I think it‘s more, you know there’s going to be many stages of this. This isn‘t just once, there’s going to be a lot. We‘ll be starting a new era. And so, and I don’t, beyond the point I don‘t know what, obviously, the outcome is going to be. But take the three issues that have really become prominent in the last year. I’ll finish with the one that most concerns you because you’re...

First of all, Spratley and Paracel Islands. Now, I don’t think anything particularly has happened, new, on this. It is claimed by an American official that a Chinese government official said that the Islands were now a core interest. The Chinese have never officially said this.

So I don‘t think that means they’ve changed their position. I think they‘ve still, they are still on the Deng Xiaoping position, which is, ‘shelve sovereignty, and concentrate on joint development.’ What they haven’t done, is make the agreement on the conduct in the South China Sea, legally binding, which, remind you, they should do. But they haven’t done it, and I think they should do. And of course, well-established Chinese position, which is, ‘we refuse to negotiate multilaterally, we negotiate bilaterally,’ which is obviously in their interest.

The only other thing is, certain evidence of increased naval activity in the South China Sea, particularly with the Vietnamese, you know, seizing of Vietnamese boats. Now this isn’t new. I mean, this has been going on for a long time in the South China Sea. Actually military clashes, with Vietnam and the Philippines. So I don’t think anything particularly new has happened. I mean, it’s slightly different, but not very different. I think we’re looking at this with a new perception, because of what I said, it’s a new context. And I think the Chinese would be well advised, myself, to seek some kind of closer contact with the Southeast Asian countries over this question. I think they should, they see that we really mean it, we‘re shelving the issue of sovereignty, we do claim it, they’re not going to abandon that claim.

They’re not going to abandon that. Because they never, that’s not the way China works. They‘re going to stick to their claim, but we’re not going to, we want to cooperate with you. So try and find a way. Seek a new way. If they do that, they will win lots of points, lots of credit, I think from the Southeast Asian countries. But I don’t think they particularly changed their positions. That’s what I feel in the South China. I think it‘s about perception and context, not about something really new they’ve done.

Um, what I think is really important about Southeast Asia, is that more, in my view, more than Korea, and more than Japan, certainly more than Japan, Japan’s a different question. Southeast Asia is a litmus paper, you know, a litmus paper test, of how Chinese will handle smaller nations. You know, Japan clearly can’t be regarded in that context. So I think symbolically, the South China Sea is very important. But symbolically.

Now, Japan, well, I think that what’s happened is that three issues happened to have coincided. Korea, Japan - the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, and the South China Sea.

Oh, by the way, just one other point. Sorry, before I leave Southeast Asia. So ASEAN invited Clinton to the meeting of the forum, last July, and she came along and she said, well you know, we’ll act as mediator in this dispute. Which was very provocative, for the Chinese. Because everyone knows that Chinese are not going to accept that. So then people talk about America coming back. I think we need to be clear about what we‘re talking about here.

First of all, Bush was absolute low point for American prestige in the region. Secondly, he completely neglected East Asia. Thirdly, under Obama, they’ve clearly had a much smarter strategy. They set out to make a priority of East Asia. But, we‘re not looking at it in the short run, really are we. We’re looking at it in the long run. And America, seems to me, is a declining power in this region. It, and China is a rising power. Why? Well, economics, essentially. You know, every country in this region, virtually now, China is the most important trading power. If this is true now, what‘s it going to be like in ten year’s time? China is going to be so important. So, you‘ve got growing flows of Chinese money, outward investment from taking place in China, and I don’t know whether you‘ve seen it, but you know the RMB is going to expand very rapidly in this region, very rapidly. In the settlement of trade. So you could get, within three or four years, you could get half the trade in this region. I read in a HSBC report yesterday. Within five years, or less than five years I think it said three to four years, half the trade in the region being settled in the RMB, now, you know, countries like Indones- no country can afford to find itself on the wrong end, you know, on the wrong side of China in this situation. What’s the priority with the United States? All the Americans can really offer is the security role. You know, okay we‘ll look after you if China gets too big for its boots, you know, sort of position. And you know I think that probably, the Indonesian president, and Lee Kwan Yew, and so on, there are certain people in Southeast Asia that probably feel OK about it. Feel comfortable about it. But there’s no way that they are going to put their eggs in an American basket, in a situation where for Indonesia, China‘s going to be so important, economically. So this is not just about, this is not an academic debate. This is a debate about changing power in the region. So I think, so a lot of the Western discussion, oh, China was in last year, America’s next, China‘s out now, America’s in. This is a superficial conversation.

So now, on Japan. Japan is, happened to take place this time. The Sino-Japanese issue is a different issue to all the other issues in that particular region. Why? Because relations have never been mended, essentially, after the war. And the Chinese, as you know, because you‘re Korean, feel very strongly about what happened, and feel, and I agree with them, that Japanese have never shown contrition towards what happened. They’ve never been able to, the apologies they give are formulaic, they‘ve never come to terms with what they did in Asia, as a people, and as a society, and as a culture, and as a polity. So, and you know, in the terms of relationship with China and Japan, China was the wronged party, and Japan did the damage. So this is a big problem.

So, you know the dispute over the islands, well the islands have been contested for a very, very long time. The Japanese have held them, but the Chinese regard them, have got a strong argument, very strong argument, for claiming them. And this again, this matter hasn’t been resolved, although the Chinese have offered the same ‘shelve sovereignty, join development’ but the Japanese turned this down. And so what happens is a guy in a fishing trawler, you know, is seized by these naval corvettes, arrested under domestic law, which is very provocative in my view. And held, with his crew. And then eventually is released. Chinese, of course, became very antagonistic in terms of making, cutting off, various forms of relations and so on. Um, I don‘t think that, you can put that in the category of Chinese aggression.

I just think that that incident, if anything it seems to me, that incident has more to do with the Japanese. You know, I can’t remember the name, but the Japanese foreign minister, it was quite an adventure, quite adventurist what happened. And it shows you that Sino-Japanese relationship is very unstable. I mean, there was a moment, under Hatoyama, when he was first elected, it did look as if something of truly historical significance was going to take place. Which was really, Japan was going to terms with the Meiji restoration, and the turn to the West and the turn away from Asia, and was going to embrace Asia in a new kind of way and realign itself, it looked as if that was possible. I mean I was skeptical whether it would happen, but it would‘ve been very good if it had happened, but it didn’t happen. And so we‘ve got this kind of stasis.

Japan is frozen, politically I think. And it’s difficult to see, in the short run, I can‘t see that changing. So I don’t think Japan is about China, I think the island issue, the trawler issue is different. What‘s different to that, that’s just a further illustration of the difficulties between the two nations. It was the worst moment between them since 2005. And the islands is, let‘s face it, probably the biggest source of danger between the two.

Now Korea, well, of course the Chinese are in difficulties over Korea, because you know they’ve got this completely, I mean, by any global criteria, very peculiar regime in North Korea, which no one really understands. And which behaves in, with a different logic to the one we‘re familiar with, and you don’t know what they‘re going to do. And that is a bit scary, I think. And the Chinese have of course supported North Korea. I mean, supported in the sense of, not supported its demands, but supported, kept it going, supplied it with trade and food and so on. And kept, if it wasn’t for the Chinese, of course, North Korea would be completely isolated and no one would talk to North Korea at all. And clearly, it‘s not that the Chinese support the Kim dynasty, because you know, amongst the Chinese as I understand it here, he’s not popular, they don‘t like him either. So why do they support him? Well I think they support him partly for historical reasons. You know, this is what they’ve done since, by supporting I mean, give him assistance.

They‘ve done it firstly because this is the aftermath of the Korean War, and this is where the Chinese, they find it difficult to change that position, and secondly, there weren’t, more importantly, if the regime collapses, what happens? What happens to the North Korean economy, what happens to huge influx of migrant- uh, North Korean refugees. And they‘re worried about what would happen in the event of an implosion, will American troops move north, and so on. So it seems to me this is an example where Chinese foreign policy has been, is very defensive, is on the defensive, it’s not shifted, their position hasn‘t changed. But events have changed. You know, the North Korean regime has become more adventurist, more crazy in what it does. And also, your presidents changed. And that’s another significant factor. Because after two presidents, that were in favor of dialogue with the North, you know the Sunshine Policy and so on, and then you have Bak [Lee Myung-bak] elected, who’s clearly, strikes me, I haven’t studied him carefully, but strikes me as being very pro-American, even to the point that he’s happy to get closer to Japan, and create a new axis, a sort of Washington-Tokyo-Seoul axis. And these exercises, these naval exercises with the Americans, were a mistake in my view. Because, they don’t achieve anything. It just creates more tension when you don‘t need to create more tension. It’s true, they‘ve got, I understand how the Koreans must feel, South Koreans must feel about it. He’s a scary character, but that‘s not, having these big exercises over and over again now, I don’t think, how do they contribute something? I can‘t see how they contribute anything very much.

What should the Chinese do? I think the Chinese need to be bold about it actually. And probably, they, you know, difficult situations, I think if there was another, I don’t know whether this is realistic, you see, because with Bak there, I‘m not sure if Bak’s going to give, I don‘t know well enough whether if the Chinese made a very bold, took a very bold initiative, whether he would respond or whether he would just, it would be lost, you know? Maybe the Chinese feel that at the moment, that they’re stuck. Maybe they feel they’re stuck, they can’t do anything. But if you had someone like one of your two previous presidents, maybe the Chinese could say OK, we, they could take a bold initiative with the Koreans, they won‘t want the Americans involved, I don’t think, but with the South Koreans, take a bold initiative, with the South Koreans who they have over the last decade a good relationship with, until Pak, and getting better all the time, and with the Korean people is my impression.

And so they need to try and find a way. Because South Korea is actually much more important to them than North Korea. But they‘ll find it difficult, I think if they shifted, they’ll think, maybe it can antagonize the North Koreans, you know in terms of, maybe make them even worse than they are. So I think they‘re in trouble over this. But again you see, this is not a shift in Chinese position. Nothing new has happened. So it’s about, it‘s a combination of changing context, changing perceptions, and events, you know, who would have predicted, well you couldn’t predict the regime could behave in this way. Because it‘s so unpredictable. Um, but this is something that’s happened. And it exposes a flaw in the Chinese position on the problem.

I think the Chinese, after, during the course of 2010, have become more confident and more, the word people in the West use is ‘assertive,’ ‘more prepared to say what they think,’ is actually what I would call it. Normally the Chinese don‘t say what they think. They just keep quiet. They use few words. But the Chinese have kept, uh, the Chinese have become a little bit more prepared to say what they think. So the classic examples, not so much in this region, but you know, blaming American, the United States, especially American banks, for the financial crash. Well they wouldn’t normally say that, but were they right? Of course Wen Jiabao was right when he said that. And then you know the proposal from the governor, the people bank of China, the special drawing rights, the currency to replace the dollar. Now this is a bold statement, but it‘s perfectly reasonable. The basic problem of the financial system is the United States and the dollar. So they become more willing to say what they think. And they need to, because that’s, you know, people say, why can‘t the Americans say, why can’t the Chinese play, take a more responsible role, take some responsibility in the international system,, well they are! They‘re saying, OK we need a different currency. That’s taking responsibility. It may be not what the Americans want to hear -- that‘s a different matter.”

“Personally, I think it’s very likely to say never say never, that as China becomes stronger with more interests around the world, in lots of different places and on new issues, then let‘s face it, the areas for disagreement with the United States are increasing all the time. You know, once upon a time, the relationship with the United States and China was really simple. You know, it was on trade matters, there was Taiwan, and uh, it was restricted to regional issues and trade really. Now China’s in Africa, Latin America, in the Middle East, I think it’s now Saudi Arabia is the biggest trading partner, I think it takes more oil from Saudi Arabia than America now, you know, in East Asia, which is the biggest economic region in the world, China is increasing in number one trading partner of most countries. So China has got, its involved in the anti-piracy off the horn of Africa.

So China’s interests have multiplied, and that brings it into contact with the United States in many new ways and of course the possibilities of disagreement are increasing all the time. And also the Chinese, you know, for a long time, they’ve followed Deng Xiaoping’s dictum, which was, bide your time, keep quiet, yeah? And build, build your strength. Very wise, very wise words. And um, and China during that period was prepared to play, I would say, a very very quiet and non-contentious role, as a supplicant of the United States almost, you know, getting, retaining the America’s good will was absolute organizing principle for Chinese foreign policy. That’s not so true now, why, because it doesn‘t need to be. So the relationship between the two countries is changing, has changed, and has changed a lot, you know when I was in Washington last November, you know, in the States, not Washington. I remember it was time of Obama’s trip to Beijing, and Obama had a lot of criticism from American media about, why didn’t he go lecturing about dissidents and human rights, and all this, you know.

So many Americans did not understand, that their relationship had changed! Now, you know, China was America’s banker!

You can’t go lecturing your bank manager, in the same way you used to. In its relationships with the United States, and in its general conduct, I don’t think you can say China‘s done badly over the last few eras, since the financial crisis. Have they got big headache, no I don’t think so. China‘s going to be the dominant economic power in the world, so it’s beginning to express its interests. You know, militarily has it been a threatening, no, I mean, apart from the thing with Vietnam, and they‘ve got some current...submarines. But they’re not, China’s still not a deep sea, still does not have a deep sea navy, it will have an air craft carrier, but I mean it hasn’t got one. I mean even Italy’s got an aircraft carrier. So there’s a certain amount of exaggeration. But people are getting used to the idea now, that China is going to become a big power. And they think of it already as a big power, which in some ways is and in some ways it definitely isn’t. So I think that its conduct, you know I don’t see anything it‘s done in the last year to suggest that it’s not still essentially committed to its peaceful rise. I mean I‘d be very surprised if China becomes, I don’t think China will behave in the same way as Europe did and the United States did, they were very expansionary forces globally, and they were very militaristic, they placed a lot of weight in that west tradition on military, adventurous. I‘m not saying China won’t do anything. But I would be surprised if that‘s, if the Chinese did that. I think the Chinese road to power actually is a bit different. It’s so big, and it‘s got such a huge economy, it’s going to cast a shadow over the whole world. Yeah? And so it‘s going to have a different way of power. And it’s going to also come with a lot of cultural baggage. The Chinese, you know this, the Chinese have a very powerful sense of cultural identity. Very strong sense of superiority, both cultural and racial. That‘s going to be the Chinese problem for the world. That’s going to be the problem. People look at China through Western eyes. And we shouldn‘t, you know, and we shouldn’t just look at, we can‘t learn anything about China from looking at the Western experience.. But we shouldn’t reduce what China‘s going to be like simply to another example of the West.”

“I think that China just needs to be patient. The problem is, the problem for America is that it is truly a declining power. And, you know, the reason the financial system came apart was because you know, the American economy, and therefore the dollar, is no longer strong enough to sustain the international financial system with the dollar as the dominant reserve currency. And America faces, it looks like, it could be quite a few years of very low growth. The predictions for the Chinese economy overtaking the size of the American economy are more like 2020 than 2027. This will be a very important year, as you know, when China overtook Japan. It had both a real and a symbolic significance, and the same will be, and that could only be, ten years is nothing. I mean, twenty years is a long time, because twenty years is sort of, you can‘t really easily predict it, but ten years is not so difficult, not impossible. I mean, it’s almost, it‘s like the projections become relatively near-term projections, which are always relatively more accurate. So the Americans are in diffi-, not, hitherto in the past, whatever the Pentagon asked for in the way of increased military expenditure, it could have. It was never discussed, never argued, never debated. They would put their proposals, and such was the kind of consensual support for America as a global military superpower, it was approved. That’s not going to happen in the future. I think it will become contentious because the Americans can no longer afford this kind of military commitment. Likewise what‘s happening in Europe, Britain, which was the most reliable supporter of the United States, has just under a right wing governor, slashed its defense expenditure.

Can’t afford it. And this is happening across Europe, so you know when people talk about, What‘s the future of NATO in a situation where these governments will no longer have the capacity. I think instead of getting frenzied about this, I think we just say look, China, if China had suffered in the financial crisis, its growth had gone down to five percent or something, then of course we would be having a different conversation. But it didn’t. The Chinese growth rate has been very, they‘ve done very very well. Because the growth still has lots of strength here. And because the government’s very smart. So China doesn‘t need to become, start throwing its weight around. I mean I can understand it feeling very frustrated that the Americans will come and exercise using one of their nuclear aircraft carriers just off the coast of China, in effect for them. It’s a bit like the Chinese sending an aircraft carrier to the Gulf of Mexico, you know, it‘s provocative. And this must, the Chinese, as you know, who got a very strong sense of their own sense of importance and pride. And so, but they just need to be patient.

No, I don’t mean they can‘t make mistakes, and I don’t mean that they‘ll always be very smart. But they have been very smart. And I think the reason they’re very smart is because, is that the Chinese state is a very very impressive, robust, and deeply rooted historical institution. The Chinese believe in statecraft, they believe in the state.

The people have great faith in the state here. The state is like a member of the family. It‘s not like America where everyone’s, you know, the whole of the American right is shouting at the state to go away. How can you run a country if you don‘t believe in the state? If you only believe in it for defense, and you know. Whereas the Chinese got this great commitment. The people say that, well, you know, after the reform period there were no political reforms, this is nonsense. The whole nature of the state was transformed from the previous period to a state which was very very interesting way of constantly experimenting, and reforming, and testing and so the process of the economic reform period has been a very very, you know it’s been conducted almost like you‘d expect a good scientific experiment to be carried out. And I think that’s not just because these guys are smart. It‘s because this is an institution that has very very deep roots in China. It’s not just the communist period, it goes way, you know. Yeah, thousand of years of history. The oldest state in the world, you know, Confucius, the first great philosopher of the state, you know, it is, it literally does go back, that‘s very important.”

“Well, how am I going to answer this question. You know, I‘ll give you an interesting thought. Generally, rich countries never want to be like poor countries. They look down upon poor countries, I’m afraid. So I‘m sure South Koreans look down upon North Koreans because they’re poor. And Hong Kong Chinese were contemptuous of mainland Chinese before 1997 and earlier. Because they just saw them as poor. You know, uncivilized, uncouth, failures. And I think this is a very very powerful human attitude.

You know, Someone asked me yesterday in the car, coming from the airport, she‘s Chinese, she works for this company, she said, why are Chinese so money, everything’s money here. Well, you know, when you‘ve been poor and you have a chance to have some money, to have a different lifestyle, it’s an incredibly powerful aspiration and driving force. That was true in Taiwan, it was true in Korea, when you were going through this phase. So China is not so attractive now in these broader senses because poor countries are not generally attractive in this sense. Uh why? It‘s not because their politics is no good or something, it’s just that they‘re the politics of development, of transformation, of growth, of escaping from poverty. They’re not about a lifestyle of relative comfort and even abundance. Probably plenty of South Koreans have got too many of consumer goods, like we have, yeah? So I think that one has to be patient about these things. It takes time, you know, China‘s still a poor country. Of course, in Beijing, you get people, you know, I mean there are now more billionaires I understand in China than there are in the United States, but the thing is that the average standard of living is still obviously much lower than in Korea. You’ve got Western living standards. And it will take, you know, it was only in 2008 that China had its first Olympic games. And a wonderful show it put on.

But you need to have some money to be able to do that kind of thing. If you‘re Senegal, you can’t do it. And that is when people start looking at society, looking at the bird‘s nest or something and saying, and just the whole way it’s organized, and then the opening ceremony, and they think, this culture interests me. Yeah? But if a culture is just a traditional culture, i.e. historically orientated, then it‘s interesting, but only in a different way. It’s part of the richness of human history, but it‘s not something I want to be like. It’s like a treasure trove. So it will take the Chinese some time. I have no absolutely no doubt whatsoever that China will become attractive, will become accessible, people will become interested in, and people will start to appreciate many things about China which they do not appreciate around the world. Because instead of just being, at the moment, the general preoccupation is certainly turned the West, authoritarian regime, no human rights, lock up dissidents, look what they’ve done to Liu Xiaobo, you know, that’s the general, I‘ll tell you that’s the general. And people think, they know about China. But you know, living here, that there’s been an absolute transformation in people’s lifestyles.

There‘s a lot more freedom in people’s lives. And actually, although it’s limited, there’s a lot of debate going on here. In fact, there’s more useful debate taking place here about the future of society, than there is in the United States. Because the American discussion has become completely paralyzed, so it’s impossible now in America to make any headway because the society is so split. Whereas here, there‘s a lot of engagement with how to deal with this problem, that problem, and so on. But it’ll take time. Maybe in ten year‘s time, people… you’ll see the process happening earlier but, and of course if they find a way of opening up their political system, which I assume they will at some point, I don’t know how they’ll do it. But you know government is very effective here. So it‘ll take time to, you know, it works, This place works. I mean, in some profound way, this place works. That’s going to be a very powerful selling point, in a world where they can see the West, it doesn‘t work really in the way that it did. You know, for a long time the West really did work, but it doesn’t work in the way it used to and needs to. Its a poor country, no one‘s going to get excited about a poor country. Someone said to me, a question I’ve never asked myself really, if you’ve lived in a rich country, it’s very difficult to go and live in a country that‘s poorer. And I’ve never really thought about that.

I don’t think the disparities are very difficult to understand. I mean it’s a vast country. The geographical size of the United States and four times the population. China isn’t one country, and in many ways it’s many countries. You know, if you go to Europe, and go around all, everywhere, Europe in all its aspects, not just Germany, you go to the Balkans, and you go to Romania and Bulgaria, you‘ll find immense disparity.

Yeah, but it’s a civilization state, not a nation-state. It is one country, but it is not, one of the two reasons it really has to be, it has grown up to be a civilization state, it‘s so difficult to hold such a vast continent together. So you couldn’t do it on the base of being a nation-state.”

“Well I don‘t think, there’s much to say how do we deal with it, I don’t think we can deal with it. You know, even small countries of which one can exercise great influence on the outside, often impervious to influence from the outside. I mean, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia, I mean Israel, is such an impervious country, but no one goes on about Israel because it’s such a close American ally. But its treatment of the Palestinian Arabs has been like, the Jews were discriminated against. So, it’s very difficult to influence fro the outside. So a lot of talk about human rights is also what I call, a sort of form of propaganda. It’s partly genuine, you know, people do feel very strongly that Liu Xiaobo should not have been locked up for his views. He‘s locked up for his views. He’s locked up for what he thinks. That‘s why he’s there. As far as I can see, for what the Chinese say, he hasn‘t done anything that is a threat to the state other than to think differently. And so, the Chinese are going to have to get used to the idea of allowing people like him to operate normally in society. But obviously this is, I assume in his case it’s got something to do with the fact that he goes back to Tiananmen Square, and within, this is a very, probably has a special resonance within the Chinese communist party, because of what happened on the Tiananmen Square.

A very difficult situation they got into. So um, but whether we can from the outside do very much, I‘m doubtful, especially with the Chinese, the Chinese really resent you interfering in their affairs. And I think the reason, I mean, there are probably quite a, probably several reasons why they resent it so much. But I think one of them must be, that they suffered so grievously at the hands of Western intervention from the late 19th century, you know for a hundred years, roughly, well, from the Opium Wars to 1949. They did suffer immensely from outside intervention that they, and they’re a very proud society. And they hugely resent interference from the outside, so it can be extremely counterproductive. I mean, personally I think that the Nobel committee really did, it‘s not smart what they did. It’s not smart, just, they make two mistakes, two years running. They shouldn‘t have given the Nobel Prize to Obama. Obama’s embarrassed by it, you know, he hadn‘t done anything. He’s just been elected, everyone was so relieved to get rid of that scoundrel Bush. You know, they think, oh, great! We got Obama, so we‘ll give him a prize! They gave him a prize for beating Bush, they didn’t give him a prize for what he‘d done. And that’s wrong. Of course, you give Nelson Mandela the peace prize. Everyone loves Mandela, rightly so. And so, Liu Xiaobo, did they really do him, was it a good service for him and for the struggle of people like him in China, or was it counterproductive? It may have been counterproductive. It may be. Because what the Chinese react, now they got the Confucius Peace Prize, and don‘t underestimate the Chinese when they decide to fight, you know, they really throw a lot of things at it. So I’m not, but that doesn’t justify what the Chinese have done with Liu Xiaobo. They should let him out. ”

“Do they hate it? What do Koreans think of the tribute system? Japan has a very unequal relationship with the United States. (laughter) In fact, the Japanese people don’t even know what the treaties say.

I don’t know the answer to your questions. Really there’s a sort of... the point I’ve stressed when it got to the book is, a certain methodology I used, which is, the more I try to understand China, the more I felt that you had to go back in history to understand China. And if you try to understand in the present, you couldn’t really understand it, because it was so much a product of its own weakness in the late nineteenth century, and its failure, and its forced adaptation to the Western system, and the collapse of the tributary system, and then it calls itself a nation-state and so on. So if you want to ask the question, well what is China going to be like, the only way I can think of trying to answer the question is by going back into history, to try and see how the Chinese, when they were in a different situation, saw the world. Now of course, there‘s no way we’re going to see a simple return to the past because that doesn‘t happen.

Because the world has changed so much. But it can definitely influence the way the Chinese think. So, I mean two classic examples in the present about how much the older ideas persist, is the handling of Hong Kong, and one country two systems. Which was nothing to do with being a nation-state. I mean the Chinese describes itself as a nation-state, since for about a hundred years. But actually, one country two systems is civilization state. Because no nation state would admit to having… This is a funny thing you know, civilization state is actually more pluralistic than a nation-state. Because it admits you can’t just run a place on basically, on a homogeneous basis, because it‘s just too diverse. Whereas as a nation-state does think you can. And the second point is, the second example is, the South China Sea, the Chinese claim on the South China sea, the historic claim line is based on a different sort of law, to the one on which the various Southeast Asian countries base their claim. So these ideas are still influential in China. They’re not something that, you know, passed out of any relevance a hundred years ago. So that‘s why I try to understand China in terms of a civilization state, and a tributary state, and the tributary system. I feel that the civilization state, that I’ve developed in my new edition, I feel that that is very absolutely fundamental for understanding China.

You cannot make sense of China unless you use this concept. Because it‘s also the key to understanding Chinese attitude toward race, toward the nature of the state as an institution, its relation to society, and so on. Now, the tributary system is more difficult, to be honest with you, I felt more speculative on this. Exactly what, well, because we’re not going to see a return to the tributary system. But what happens in, say East Asia, where China becomes the dominant economic presence in the region. Now we‘re just at the beginning of that. But imagine if this continues in thirty years time, fifty years time. You’re going to have a very different regional economy, and uh China will be, it will be China-centric… It will be China-dominated, the economy. And lots of things will flow from that. As I mentioned here, I think it‘s very likely, most trade if not all trade will be conducted in the RMB, sooner or later. It’ll replace the dollar very quickly. And likewise, Mandarin’s going to be a widely spoken language. You teach it at secondary schools, don’t you? Mandarin‘s taught in secondary schools, isn’t it? Is it a compulsory language?

Actually thing is, I think it‘s going to be more important, I think for Korea, more important than English. Not now, because of course, but uh. So the cultural flows, financial flows, the trade flows in the region will be more and more China-orientated. And you’ll be exposed more and more to Chinese cultural influence, Chinese trends, Chinese fashions. I mean Korea’s been influential in the region.

Yeah, I think it will become, but probably, yeah it will for sure. You’ll have to deal with the Chinese government, you’ll become familiar with it. You’ll become familiar with the way the state‘s organized in China. You’ll learn lots, I mean it‘s a very good state. It’s got this authoritarian side which is unattractive probably for Koreans, although Koreans have itself lots of authoritarian... And uh, so maybe it‘s not so different. You know, you’ve got a common Confucian legacy. Not as strong in Korea as China. But still pretty strong. So I think we‘ll find... Oh, the tributary system. So it’s something like that. Now the thing is that, exactly China will occupy such a predominant place in the region that it would be silly to say what everyone, all countries are equal. Equal in certain respects, not equal in others. But that was true of the Westphalian system. I mean the Westphalia system, you know, American and its allies, was that an equal relationship, of course it‘s not an equal relationship. America’s relationship for a long time with the Latin American countries? Not at all. What the Westphalian system offers the nation-state system is de jure equality, in other words, in principle you are equal. De facto, in other words, in reality, you‘re not equal at all. So as I argue in the book, in some ways they’re not so different because you know, it‘s about power. The one thing I’d say is, I mean the Chinese will say is, I don‘t have a view about it, because I don’t, because I haven‘t studied enough. But the tribute system is a very stable system, and it was flexible, it was adaptive, the Chinese argue, I don’t know what the Koreans would say, that it was quite a benevolent system. I don‘t know what the Koreans think though.

But public opinion won’t know much about it, will it. Because it was a historical phenomenon. But it wasn‘t a very exploitative system. And you’d have to contrast that, if, what the West brought, the West brought colonialism, copied by Japan. Chinese didn‘t colonize, I mean the nearest the Chinese ever got to colonization was what they did under the Qing Dynasty from the 17th century in conquering the Western parts of china. Now you can say that those parts have really remained, they are a form of colonization, you can say that. But they could have colonized Southeast Asia, they didn’t. So that‘s why when people talk about China and Africa, they say, oh, new colonialism. No, what new colonialism? The Chinese were not colonial, they didn’t have a colonial tradition. If they mean, is it an unequal economic relationship? Yeah, certainly it‘s going to be an unequal economic relationship. But historically the West has a much worse record...”

“The poor people, the disparity in wealth and so on, is a very big question. You’ve got two phenomena, first, you’ve got in effect, the development of, you’ve got capitalism, essentially it‘s capitalism with a very strong state, and a very ubiquitous state. So what’s unusual about China is not the actual system, which is really a form of capitalism, but you’ve got a very very strong state, this is very usual. In fact I would say it’s almost unique. So, and capitalism generates inequalities, and we all know that. And when we let it rip, it produces big disparities, because that‘s the way the system works. You can try to control and temper it, as the Chinese have up to a point, but part of the dynamism of the system, is you allow the disparities to develop, but how much. And the second problem is globalization. Which is that it seems to me, this period of globalization since the late 70s, has been characterized by the growth in, I mean lots of things. But one of the characteristics has been very sharp inequalities that had been accentuated by globalization. So you’ve got, and you‘ve got both of these effects in China.

Now the question is, can they do anything about it? And do they have the political will to do something about it. If the answer to either of the questions is no, then China is going to be characterized by great, huge, inequalities. Maybe growing inequalities. That will be a problem. Because I think that beyond the point, societies that are very extremely unequal, have deep seated systemic problems. America, is a classic example. America, I think, is really in trouble over its degrees of inequality. It’s a first world country with many third world features. Poor people don’t have any healthcare in America, I mean, what an outrage. It’s not that it doesn‘t work, but under certain circumstances, it doesn’t, in some ways it doesn‘t work very well. This is a very big issue for China. Now look, they say, in the twelve, five-year plan, that this is one of their priorities. They never said it with this determination before.”

“I don’t think you have to look to the future. You can see that’s happened already. It‘s a process. But what you’re saying is right. I mean, you know, you can, well every time I come here, you feel a change every time you come. The lifestyle of young Chinese is so different, so different from, I mean, extraordinary different from their parents and from their grandparents. And a big opening up, I mean, culturally, the society is orientated to the outside in a way, that is porous and transparent to the outside in a way that it never was. You got food, you got, you know, language, dress, you know, in all sorts of ways, this is the most extrovert period of Chinese history ever. And I think that, that’s going to carry on, I can’t see how anyone‘s going to reverse that. Now, how that develops and how it has expressed itself, China’s always been a, as you know, a very state-led, state-orientated, state-dominated society. That is what China has historically always been, a very weak civil society.

I mean it‘s not that there aren’t lots of discussions and debates and arguments, but they tend to be within a sphere, which is state-approved, state-sponsored. And I think that what I expect to happen is, I expect that, it to become more and more open. I expect the Communist party to become more open. I don‘t expect the communist party to go, because it’s been a very successful ruling party, I mean, this has been an extraordinary successful political regime. I can‘t think of another one that’s as successful in the last fifty years. Well, certainly the last thirty years, certainly the last thirty years. It must be the first, in the world. So, I think that, one looks to the future, of the present system opening up, rather than some fundamental change. At some point there might well be a fundamental change. But I think the process of opening up, gradual transparency, more voices, more accountability, more representivity, more accountability, more awareness, you know, I mean it‘s like Wen Jiabao has demonstrated to some extent, I think that will carry on. But even if there was some fundamental shift, at some point - some political crisis - but I don’t see this as imminent.

At some point in the future, I think China will always recognizably be China, I mean it‘s not suddenly going to become like America or something. That is, just like, you think America could ever become like China. It’s in the DNA of the society, the state will always be important to China. Why? Because the state has held China together. And for the Chinese, nothing is more important than the unity of the country. And why is it so important? Because for the Chinese, China means its civilization, its civilization is what it is. And unity is very difficult in a country so big, so they don‘t take it for granted. That’s why it‘s a very powerful political core, when a government says, against splittists and separatists, it has a very powerful resonance amongst the Chinese.”

“Well, I mean, it’s already had the effect of... I mean, your government has contributed to the deterioration of relations with North Korea. Although the prime problem is obviously the behavior of the North Korean government. You had two presidents who really pursued the new kind of policy. With some results. And actually at the end of the day, let’s face it, there’s only one, eventually, there will be, Korea will be unified, in some way. That would be my overwhelming assumption, that some time North and South will get together again. I don’t know how, I don’t know under what terms, I don’t know over what period, how it might be organized, but it will happen. And the division on the peninsula will be overcome. And this kind of warlike, this state of siege, state of war, across the peninsula will be, divided peninsula will be overcome. And I think that is, you know that’s the question really, for Koreans. I know that many South Koreans probably don‘t think like that, because they know that if they take on North Korea, it’s going to be a huge problem it‘s very poor, living standards, so many problems, many things they don’t have in common, so many years of separation, and so on, but I think it will happen. So, that‘s another question for you, which is, North, South, United States and China, those are the questions, aren’t they, really.

In the longer run, I don‘t think the United States is a good bet for South Korea, in the long term. Because I don’t think it will keep its troops there indefinitely. And, I‘m not really sure how long the Americans will carry on with its presence over Asia policy, maybe twenty years, but difficult to imagine beyond that, I think, because they won’t be strong enough. And China will definitely be strong enough, to assume a much bigger responsibility vis a vis, whatever is needed on the peninsula. So I think that the two previous presidents were thinking along the right lines. Some kind of reconciliation, it‘s slow, it’s painful, you‘re dealing with an extremely erratic, unpredictable regime, but they’re right. That is the question. And, to reduce, then the sort of, the forces, I don‘t know whether you call it right wing, but they’re called right wing, the nationalist forces in Korea that emphasize the importance of the relationship with the United States, and what, North Korea is completely dangerous, we must isolate it, we must treat it as the enemy, we cannot trust China position, you know, that is a return to the Cold War, and it really is uh, it doesn‘t take account of the way in which the world has changed.

You know, America is not, any longer in that position. Of course, for the short term, it works. Maybe for longer, maybe for ten years it would work. But beyond that it will not work. So it seems to be that what South Korea needs to do, and it has been doing, and now it’s got into a reverse, is to seek a new relationship, with China to be frozen by these developments, keep that as absolutely essential, pursue, how, the question for South Korea is, how are we going to find a new relationship with North Korea. I know it‘s been the question for a long time, it’s not a new question. But that is the question. It‘s not going to go away. That is the question for South Korea. And hurling insults, and this new defense minister saying, what did he say the other day? He would, if they were going to bomb North Korea, this is crazy talk, absolutely crazy talk. The danger is the extremism of the North Korean kind produces the same thing in South Korea. So, when’s the next presidential election?

So I think this is a very short term mentality. It’s the politics of the cold war alliances, and South Korea’s responsibility, seems to me, is to try, and not, is to retreat into, I mean I understand the feelings about the North, but it’s not to retreat into the bunker, the cold war bunker, but is to find a way of resolving these questions, find a way of reaching out.”

“I don’t know, I’ve never discussed this with any leading figure in China at all, so it’s just my own view. Ok? I’ve never, not even with scholars, because I haven’t been in China recently, and so I would‘ve discussed it with some of their international relations people, but I haven’t. So, I think that what China would, what would reassure China is, if they, I think they would be probably willing to accept the reunification of Korea on the basis that the peninsula, the American troops leave, and there are no nuclear weapons on the peninsula. And I think that would be a good deal for Korea. No foreign troops on the peninsula, no nuclear weapons. Good deal! And I think the Chinese will go along with that. What the Chinese are worried about is, American troops in North Korea, on the Chinese border.

Will they accept that? I don‘t think they will... They can’t accept that can they. I mean, it’s impossible for them to accept that. I mean, what would America think of Chinese troops on the Mexican border?

I speak for myself, no one else. Actually, that’s true on everything. I only speak for myself for anything. I don‘t represent anyone.”

“Well, I admire your optimism. The problem for the Europeans is that they don’t know much about China. In fact, they’re very ignorant about China. Of course they know about China’s rise, they know that it is economically much stronger. But they are also very critical about China, they are, almost immediately they’ll talk about human rights. And uh, you know, Communist party, lack of elections, and so on. My experience with Europeans about China is that they’re very ignorant about it. And they are not very interested. I mean, my book’s been a global bestseller. But it‘s not been translated into a single European language. German, Spanish, French, Italian, not one single language, been translated into lots of Asian languages, into Hebrew, into Arabic.

And I think what this speaks of is Europe’s decline. Europe is becoming more and more of a regional mentality. So you say well, it hasn‘t got conflict, a particularly strong conflict except on the trading front with China, this is true. But it has a diminishing relationship with the world. It’s retreating into a regional mentality. So it‘s quite ignorant, not really interested, not really engaged, so it’s not, so I mean, I find when I’m in America, for example, lots of American, you know, of course most Americans don’t know anything about China, really because Americans are very insular, lots of Americans are very insular. But because America‘s a big superpower, there’s a lot of people who do know, who think it‘s their responsibility to be well-informed about China. And so the debate is much more interesting in America, than it is in Europe. There aren’t many people in Europe that know about China, and a lot of the experts, well this is true in America as well, they look at China through a western prism. But still, you know, I notice with my book, a lot of American reviews and reactions were, have been quite open minded about, that the European reaction, huge reviews in Britain, and some of the were fantastic reviews, but there were quite a significant number who, reaction was, you know, they don‘t like China, because they don’t like its political arrangements, and so on. Whereas I‘ve found in some ways that was less true in America because they just needed to know. If you’re running the world, you have to know about it, even if you don‘t like something, you have to know about it because you got to deal with it. Whereas if you’re not running anything, you can just have a view. It doesn‘t matter, you can just have an opinion, oh I like it or I don’t like it. Whereas American debate in that sense is more grown up.

A year ago, I did a tour of East Asia, well mainly Southeast Asia, I’ve done Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. And I found, I mean, it was one of the most interesting experiences I’ve had with the, because people were, they knew, they know about the rise of China. They can feel it already themselves. So I don‘t have to argue that it’s happening. In Europe, you have to sort of, they don‘t really understand. They know, they’ve heard about it, but it‘s somewhere out there it’s not somewhere they can feel. Whereas, in Southeast Asia, they feel it and they want to make sense of it, so they‘re engaged with it. So they’re more worldly about it than the Europeans. I like saying that. That the Southeast Asians are more worldly than the Europeans. But the point is, near, that is where the world, that is now the center of gravity of change in the world, is China, and this region. So now, you are, you‘re at the heart of the way the world’s changing. I say to people, if you want to understand how the world is changing, don‘t go to North America, don’t go to Europe. Go to East Asia, that is the heart. That is where the center of global change is now. For a long time it was in the West. So all you Koreans flew off to America, and all that kind of thing, and you never went to your other countries, now you need to go to China! True?“

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Martin Jacques (born October 1945) is a British former magazine editor and academic. He was born and raised in Coventry. He was an undergraduate student at Manchester University, where he graduated with a first-class honours degree, and subsequently studied for a PhD at King‘s College, Cambridge.

He was editor of the CPGB’s journal, Marxism Today from 1977 until its closure in 1991, a publication which was politically quite mainstream in its final years, with regular contributions from figures generally identified with the Atlanticist left such as David Marquand. In this period, Jacques was the co-editor or co-author of The Forward March of Labour Halted? (1981), The Politics of Thatcherism (1983) and New Times (1989).

Jacques was a co-founder of the think-tank Demos. He has been a columnist for The Times and The Sunday Times and was deputy editor of The Independent. Currently he is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics Asia Research Centre. During the last year he has been a visiting professor at the International Centre for Chinese Studies at Aichi University in Japan, a visiting professor at Renmin University in Beijing and a senior visiting fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. In 2009, Jacques‘ book about Asian modernity and the rise of China entitled When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order was published. He is a columnist for The Guardian and New Statesman.